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Finally, I see a house. It’s just beyond some trees. Like a magnet, it pulls me forward and I walk faster. Once I’m right in front of it, I stop.
A two-story house with a blue and white facade and a front porch. A silver truck sits in the driveway.
A beautiful house. Hopefully, it belongs to good people.
I approach the house carefully and set the bassinet down on the front porch. As soon as I’ve done that, I start to leave. Just when I think I’ve pulled it off, I hear someone shout.
“Hey!”
Shit. I start running.
“Wait!”
I keep going. Without the bassinet, I can move faster, but I’m still weak. I know I can’t be caught, but my body just won’t go fast enough. I can hear my pursuer coming closer.
No.
After a few more seconds, he grabs my arm. My legs give way and my knees sink to the ground. As I fight back tears of frustration, he kneels in front of me. His hand rests on my shoulder.
“Are you okay?”
I lift my chin and find myself gazing into kind blue eyes. They remind me of the lake Jim brought me to once – calm, mysterious but not forbidding, stunning under sunlight. They don’t seem to belong among such rugged, thoroughly sun-kissed features fringed with bristles of honey-colored hair. Yet that’s exactly the face I see in front of me, the last sight I behold before the last of my strength leaves me and everything goes black.
Chapter Two
Antonio
Who is this woman?
I’ve been wondering about it ever since I saw her running away from the house. Now that I’ve set her down on a bed, checked her vitals and gone through her things, I still don’t have an answer.
Who is she?
I know she’s not from Summerset. I’ve never seen her before. I know she’s a mother. Her baby is with my assistant, Sally, right now. She doesn’t seem to be married. At least, she’s not wearing a ring. The only piece of jewelry I found on her was the gold watch in her backpack. A man’s watch. Her boyfriend’s? Her father’s? I don’t know.
I know she’s in her early twenties. Twenty-four at most, maybe. Her pale complexion suggests she hasn’t been out of the house much, and yet she’s drenched in sweat, which means she walked all the way here from the bus stop. I’m surprised she was able to, given how thin and frail she looks and the fact that she was carrying that baby. My guess is she’s only about 105 pounds even though she’s about 5’5″, nearly ten pounds off the ideal.
Could she have just lost weight recently after giving birth, or has she always been this thin, maybe because of some sickness or simply a lack of food from poverty?
My gut tells me it’s the last one, but I’m confused. Her baby looks healthy. The bassinet and clothes look expensive. Also, she has that watch in her backpack that must cost at least five hundred dollars. And yet, her own clothes look old, shabby even. And not just from walking. Her knitted sweater must have been the shade of a canary’s feathers once, but now it’s the color of a lemon slice that’s been left out for too long. A button is missing, a rusty safety pin in its place, and the edge of one of her sleeves has started to unravel. The shirt beneath has a collar that’s been overly stretched and her pants are patched at the knees. There’s a stain on one of the pockets, too.
Then there’s her hair – a beautiful auburn color that reminds me of the leaves in autumn, and yet it seems to have been cut by a five-year-old. Either that or she cut it herself with a razor blade in a rush. Now, why would she do that?
So many questions. Now I know how confused Mitch and Abby must have been when I first showed up at their house.
This house. Come to think of it, they put me on this very bed that this woman is lying on right now. In this same exact room. The circumstances seem similar, too. Sure, she came here on her own instead of being dropped off by some Good Samaritan, but like me, she appeared out of the blue in this small, remote town, looking like a mess. She may not be as injured as I was, but I can tell she’s been through a lot. I’m pretty sure she was about to leave her baby at my doorstep, in fact. That’s how hopeless, helpless she felt. How alone. Just like I was.
Well, at least, she probably has her memories, though I get the feeling she’d rather be without them. If she’s willing to leave her child behind, I bet she’d cast aside her memories without a second thought if she could.
